Okay, NOW it’s about time I made a review of the game that has my profile picture’s character in it.
If you couldn’t tell already, I am absolutely in love with The Owl House. I love basically everything about it; its characters, its world, the artstyle, the overarching plot over each episode, I don’t even think there’s a single episode I disliked even a little bit. It might be my favorite show of all time next to Nichijou. However, this isn’t a review of The Owl House as a show, thank fucking god. Having to do Hazelnut Hex justice was already stressful enough, if I had to do that for a show as amazing as The Owl House, I think I would actually implode. No, the reason I mention all this is because when you start to get hyper-obsessed with a franchise, you end up consuming a lot of media related to it, like Youtube videos, merchandise, and of course, web browser games. So I decided that upon finishing Season 3 of the Owl House, I’d take the time to check out more of what it had to offer, including its first and only game; The Owl House: Witch’s Apprentice. And it’s uh… well, it’s certainly a web browser game.
The premise of this game is, as expected, pretty simple. You’re Luz Noceda, and you have to fulfill certain duties for Eda to progress through the game, such as getting parts of her body back, or gathering materials to sell later. The gameplay is sort of what you’d expect from your standard web browser platformer, though it occasionally breaks up these segments with changes to the gameplay such as flying sections or minigames where you have to sell materials at a market. You also gain more abilities during the platforming sections as you go along, such as the ability to create platforms out of plants, using a shell to knock over stacks of enemies, a double jump, etc. Aside from the main game, you can also clear special levels in order to collect relics, items which sort of just act like an extra collectible, though they do reference every episode from Season 1, which is a really cool detail for fans of the show like me. That’s pretty much all I have to mention in terms of the basic gameplay, and I gotta say that it has a pretty decent amount of content for a web browser / iOS game. Because of that, I actually have a lot to say about this Witch’s Apprentice, at least, a lot more than I initially thought, so let’s go into a bit more detail about the main crux of the game; the platforming.
The platformer levels, like I mentioned, feel pretty standard and while they’re still fun, they don’t really stand out too much. There are two reasons why I feel this way, one of which is the level design. The levels often revolve around looking for a certain amount of items, be it fire crystals, a cauldron, one of Eda’s body parts, etc. Because of this, the levels opt to be quite open, which I don’t mind, but there are points where the levels kind of suffer from feeling like you’re just going through the motions. Enemies are typically out of the way, and there aren’t too many setpieces that stand out within the level, be it gimmicks or just super memorable platforming sections. The other reason why I feel like the levels are pretty standard is because of your initial moveset. At the start of the game, you only start with your typical running, jumping and ducking. However, as you progress through the game, you start to gain more abilities which you can use in the levels, such as a double jump, the ability to plant trees as platforms, freeze hordes of enemies, and use a snaggleback shell to topple over stacks of enemies. While I think this is a fantastic idea, it kind of suffers from a weird problem. From what I’ve researched, this game was also ported to iOS, meaning this was designed for mobile devices as well. Because of this, all of these abilities are all relegated to the same button. And by the same button, I mean the jump button. Because of this limitation, the game only allows you to use these abilities in certain sections where in designated (typically sparkling) areas, so for example, whenever you see a dirt pile on the ground, that’s when you’re able to plant a platform for you to stand on. Unfortunately, it’s for this reason that the level design typically doesn’t take advantage of these abilities, so you don’t need to use them too often. Hell, I remember getting an ability that lets you make a platform out of a cloud, but I don’t remember using it once. So for that reason, the levels can end up feeling repetitive and samey for a lot of people. But contrary to what I’m making it sound like, I don’t think the level design of this game is bad. I mean, it’s certainly no Big Tower Tiny Square in terms of level design, but I still had a lot of fun with the levels despite their problems. For a browser game, it’s just engaging enough to get into it when you could be focusing in class instead.
I really only have one major issue with the level design, but before I get to that, I want to discuss the enemies. Aside from the abilities you gain later, you only have running and jumping to get you by. So, how do you deal with the enemies in this game? Well, by jumping on their heads, Mario style, of course! However, doing this feels kinda finicky. Most of the time it works, but other times you fall through the enemy and take damage. However, I didn’t find this too frustrating, as the damage you take really doesn’t matter that much, and this feels like the perfect time to segue into my biggest problem with Witch’s Apprentice; the health power-ups, or rather, the massive abundance of health power-ups that you just can’t seem to get away from. I’m not joking when I say the amount of health power-ups in these levels is egregious. Seriously, dodging the health power-ups might be harder than dodging the damn enemies! I’m willing to be more forgiving of the game’s other issues due to it being both a web browser game and an iOS game, but this is the one thing about Witch’s Apprentice that I feel like should’ve been changed. Before we move on, I have one more thing to address regarding the levels in Witch’s Apprentice, specifically the relic levels. These are bonus levels that you can play to collect relics referencing episodes from Season 1, however, the levels themselves are structured really strangely. Normally, the levels in the main game start you out in the town, then you go to the forest levels and then the market levels last. However, after collecting the 16th relic in the market area, the next area sent me back to the town? It feels like all of the relic levels are ordered strangely like this, and I don’t really take any issue with it, but I just found it pretty weird and I have no clue when I’m going to get the chance to mention this again.
Aside from the main platforming levels, there are two levels which opt to change up the gameplay. One of them is a flying level where you have to retrieve Eda’s body as it’s flying on a magic staff, meaning that you have to fly on a magic staff to get it back. This sounds like a really fun idea, but it’s kinda plagued by a terrible control scheme. Rather than using the arrow keys like a normal game, you instead have to hold the mouse to fly up, and once you release it, you go down, which is incredibly awkward and just not that fun to control. At least the level is really short, though I do think the potential for Kaznapped-esque shooter sections was kinda wasted here. The other aforementioned level in this game is one where you’re supposed to sell Eda’s stuff at the market within a certain time limit. This one was surprisingly really challenging at first because I thought that you had to drag the item to the person who wanted it. However, whenever I dragged it, it always moved really slowly towards the person and I would always run out of time. What you’re actually supposed to do is flick the item towards the person who wants it, which I had no idea was the case until I got game over, like, 6 times. After you figure that out, the level itself is pretty easy.
That’s normally where I’d leave the review at, but since this is an Owl House game, I want to talk about the game’s story real quick. The game’s story starts off with you having to do busywork for Eda, like getting back her fallen body parts, and gathering stuff to then sell at the market. However, once you’ve finished selling stuff, Luz realizes that she’s lost King at the market. Once you go back, however, the guard from the first episode has him captive, so you’ve gotta get stuff for this guy so you can free him. Unfortunately, it turns out the dude just conned you, and now he’s ready to make King into his lunch. So once you head back to the Owl House, you and Eda set out to stop this guy and get back King, and after you get him back, that’s when the game ends. It’s not really too much, but for a web browser game like this, it works fine enough, and captures the Season 1 energy quite well. Plus, all of the cutscenes are fully voice acted too, which, for a free web browser game, is genuinely sick. There are also dialogue options you can choose to change up the scenario, but these don’t really affect anything in the grand scheme of things as none of these characters remember any of what you chose. Overall, the plot works really well for what Witch’s Apprentice is going for.
The Owl House: Witch’s Apprentice has a ton of problems, but even then, I still had a decent enough time with it, and for a free browser game, there’s clearly a ton of effort put into it. I know for sure I would’ve been playing this game in class all the time had I discovered it back then. However, it kind of just makes me wish that Disney would let Dana Terrace cook and make an actual Owl House game on consoles and Steam. There’s a lot of potential when it comes down to the Boiling Isles and its world, we could go through Hexside and learn spells, hell, we could even do a Sonic Adventure thing where each main character could have their own campaign to go through. There’s a lot of untapped potential in this game and this franchise as a whole, so maybe someday we could finally see another Owl House game like this. As it stands, though, for a free web browser game, it’s pretty good. I don’t think my rating would be nearly as high if this wasn’t a web browser game that was also designed for iOS, but even so, I still enjoyed my time with it. If you’re a fan of The Owl House, I’d recommend giving it a try at least once. (6/10)
(Also, fun fact, I submitted this game on IGDB.)
If you couldn’t tell already, I am absolutely in love with The Owl House. I love basically everything about it; its characters, its world, the artstyle, the overarching plot over each episode, I don’t even think there’s a single episode I disliked even a little bit. It might be my favorite show of all time next to Nichijou. However, this isn’t a review of The Owl House as a show, thank fucking god. Having to do Hazelnut Hex justice was already stressful enough, if I had to do that for a show as amazing as The Owl House, I think I would actually implode. No, the reason I mention all this is because when you start to get hyper-obsessed with a franchise, you end up consuming a lot of media related to it, like Youtube videos, merchandise, and of course, web browser games. So I decided that upon finishing Season 3 of the Owl House, I’d take the time to check out more of what it had to offer, including its first and only game; The Owl House: Witch’s Apprentice. And it’s uh… well, it’s certainly a web browser game.
The premise of this game is, as expected, pretty simple. You’re Luz Noceda, and you have to fulfill certain duties for Eda to progress through the game, such as getting parts of her body back, or gathering materials to sell later. The gameplay is sort of what you’d expect from your standard web browser platformer, though it occasionally breaks up these segments with changes to the gameplay such as flying sections or minigames where you have to sell materials at a market. You also gain more abilities during the platforming sections as you go along, such as the ability to create platforms out of plants, using a shell to knock over stacks of enemies, a double jump, etc. Aside from the main game, you can also clear special levels in order to collect relics, items which sort of just act like an extra collectible, though they do reference every episode from Season 1, which is a really cool detail for fans of the show like me. That’s pretty much all I have to mention in terms of the basic gameplay, and I gotta say that it has a pretty decent amount of content for a web browser / iOS game. Because of that, I actually have a lot to say about this Witch’s Apprentice, at least, a lot more than I initially thought, so let’s go into a bit more detail about the main crux of the game; the platforming.
The platformer levels, like I mentioned, feel pretty standard and while they’re still fun, they don’t really stand out too much. There are two reasons why I feel this way, one of which is the level design. The levels often revolve around looking for a certain amount of items, be it fire crystals, a cauldron, one of Eda’s body parts, etc. Because of this, the levels opt to be quite open, which I don’t mind, but there are points where the levels kind of suffer from feeling like you’re just going through the motions. Enemies are typically out of the way, and there aren’t too many setpieces that stand out within the level, be it gimmicks or just super memorable platforming sections. The other reason why I feel like the levels are pretty standard is because of your initial moveset. At the start of the game, you only start with your typical running, jumping and ducking. However, as you progress through the game, you start to gain more abilities which you can use in the levels, such as a double jump, the ability to plant trees as platforms, freeze hordes of enemies, and use a snaggleback shell to topple over stacks of enemies. While I think this is a fantastic idea, it kind of suffers from a weird problem. From what I’ve researched, this game was also ported to iOS, meaning this was designed for mobile devices as well. Because of this, all of these abilities are all relegated to the same button. And by the same button, I mean the jump button. Because of this limitation, the game only allows you to use these abilities in certain sections where in designated (typically sparkling) areas, so for example, whenever you see a dirt pile on the ground, that’s when you’re able to plant a platform for you to stand on. Unfortunately, it’s for this reason that the level design typically doesn’t take advantage of these abilities, so you don’t need to use them too often. Hell, I remember getting an ability that lets you make a platform out of a cloud, but I don’t remember using it once. So for that reason, the levels can end up feeling repetitive and samey for a lot of people. But contrary to what I’m making it sound like, I don’t think the level design of this game is bad. I mean, it’s certainly no Big Tower Tiny Square in terms of level design, but I still had a lot of fun with the levels despite their problems. For a browser game, it’s just engaging enough to get into it when you could be focusing in class instead.
I really only have one major issue with the level design, but before I get to that, I want to discuss the enemies. Aside from the abilities you gain later, you only have running and jumping to get you by. So, how do you deal with the enemies in this game? Well, by jumping on their heads, Mario style, of course! However, doing this feels kinda finicky. Most of the time it works, but other times you fall through the enemy and take damage. However, I didn’t find this too frustrating, as the damage you take really doesn’t matter that much, and this feels like the perfect time to segue into my biggest problem with Witch’s Apprentice; the health power-ups, or rather, the massive abundance of health power-ups that you just can’t seem to get away from. I’m not joking when I say the amount of health power-ups in these levels is egregious. Seriously, dodging the health power-ups might be harder than dodging the damn enemies! I’m willing to be more forgiving of the game’s other issues due to it being both a web browser game and an iOS game, but this is the one thing about Witch’s Apprentice that I feel like should’ve been changed. Before we move on, I have one more thing to address regarding the levels in Witch’s Apprentice, specifically the relic levels. These are bonus levels that you can play to collect relics referencing episodes from Season 1, however, the levels themselves are structured really strangely. Normally, the levels in the main game start you out in the town, then you go to the forest levels and then the market levels last. However, after collecting the 16th relic in the market area, the next area sent me back to the town? It feels like all of the relic levels are ordered strangely like this, and I don’t really take any issue with it, but I just found it pretty weird and I have no clue when I’m going to get the chance to mention this again.
Aside from the main platforming levels, there are two levels which opt to change up the gameplay. One of them is a flying level where you have to retrieve Eda’s body as it’s flying on a magic staff, meaning that you have to fly on a magic staff to get it back. This sounds like a really fun idea, but it’s kinda plagued by a terrible control scheme. Rather than using the arrow keys like a normal game, you instead have to hold the mouse to fly up, and once you release it, you go down, which is incredibly awkward and just not that fun to control. At least the level is really short, though I do think the potential for Kaznapped-esque shooter sections was kinda wasted here. The other aforementioned level in this game is one where you’re supposed to sell Eda’s stuff at the market within a certain time limit. This one was surprisingly really challenging at first because I thought that you had to drag the item to the person who wanted it. However, whenever I dragged it, it always moved really slowly towards the person and I would always run out of time. What you’re actually supposed to do is flick the item towards the person who wants it, which I had no idea was the case until I got game over, like, 6 times. After you figure that out, the level itself is pretty easy.
That’s normally where I’d leave the review at, but since this is an Owl House game, I want to talk about the game’s story real quick. The game’s story starts off with you having to do busywork for Eda, like getting back her fallen body parts, and gathering stuff to then sell at the market. However, once you’ve finished selling stuff, Luz realizes that she’s lost King at the market. Once you go back, however, the guard from the first episode has him captive, so you’ve gotta get stuff for this guy so you can free him. Unfortunately, it turns out the dude just conned you, and now he’s ready to make King into his lunch. So once you head back to the Owl House, you and Eda set out to stop this guy and get back King, and after you get him back, that’s when the game ends. It’s not really too much, but for a web browser game like this, it works fine enough, and captures the Season 1 energy quite well. Plus, all of the cutscenes are fully voice acted too, which, for a free web browser game, is genuinely sick. There are also dialogue options you can choose to change up the scenario, but these don’t really affect anything in the grand scheme of things as none of these characters remember any of what you chose. Overall, the plot works really well for what Witch’s Apprentice is going for.
The Owl House: Witch’s Apprentice has a ton of problems, but even then, I still had a decent enough time with it, and for a free browser game, there’s clearly a ton of effort put into it. I know for sure I would’ve been playing this game in class all the time had I discovered it back then. However, it kind of just makes me wish that Disney would let Dana Terrace cook and make an actual Owl House game on consoles and Steam. There’s a lot of potential when it comes down to the Boiling Isles and its world, we could go through Hexside and learn spells, hell, we could even do a Sonic Adventure thing where each main character could have their own campaign to go through. There’s a lot of untapped potential in this game and this franchise as a whole, so maybe someday we could finally see another Owl House game like this. As it stands, though, for a free web browser game, it’s pretty good. I don’t think my rating would be nearly as high if this wasn’t a web browser game that was also designed for iOS, but even so, I still enjoyed my time with it. If you’re a fan of The Owl House, I’d recommend giving it a try at least once. (6/10)
(Also, fun fact, I submitted this game on IGDB.)